Haran was a major ancient city in northwest Mesopotamia—a river city on the caravan route between the east and west. In ancient times, the water table was probably much higher in this area. It stood on the continually flowing Balikh River (aka Belik) which drained the Harran Plain. Today, the diminished Balikh is still a major tributary of the Euphrates River, about 70 miles above where it joins that river in Upper Mesopotamia or Padan Aram, and about 600 miles northwest of Ur in a direct line.

Relationship of Haran to Ur—and the moon-god Sin

Ur was consecrated to the worship of Sin, the Babylonian moon-god. It shared this honor, however, with another city, and this city was Haran, or Harran. Harran was in Mesopotamia, and took its name from the highroad which led through it from the east to the west. The name is Babylonian, and bears witness to its having been founded by a Babylonian king. The same witness is still more decisively borne by the worship paid in it to the Babylonian moon-god and by its ancient temple of Sin. Indeed, the temple of the moon-god at Harran was perhaps even more famous in the Assyrian and Babylonian world than the temple of the moon-god at Ur.

Between Ur and Harran there must, consequently, have been a close connection in early times, the record of which has not yet been recovered. It may be that Harran owed its foundation to a king of Ur; at any rate the two cities were bound together by the worship of the same deity, the closest and most enduring bond of union that existed in the ancient world. That Terah should have migrated from Ur to Harran, therefore, ceases to be extraordinary. If he left Ur at all, it was the most natural place to which to go. It was like passing from one court of a temple into another.